1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to customs inspection and data processing systems and, more particularly, to a system, method and computer program product for processing (e.g., viewing, pricing, storing, retrieving, editing, summarizing, analyzing, reporting) customs information over the Internet from any remote location at any time.
2. Description of the Background Art
There has always been a strong demand for timely, consistent and reliable customs information in order to, for example, accurately levy customs duties and taxes on imported goods, from any remote location. Recently, the demand has been growing.
Several countries of exports have numerous points of entries and remote customs offices. Customs officials at remote customs offices have in the past attempted to verify a declared price of a consignment against previous consignments of identical or similar goods from the same country of export that are made at or about the same time as the new consignment. Very often, however, consignments cannot be found in the customs local database. The customs officials would therefore have to locate prices, which is time consuming and can create unacceptable delays in customs clearance. Even when previous consignments are found, it is usually necessary to update the price of the previous consignment in the local database based on the commercial level and quantity of the new consignment, thereby creating substantial data inconsistencies in available customs information that may be critical to a customs official in the decision making process.
Customs offices generally use communication mediums, such as dedicated satellite links, lease lines, etc., and support alternatives to communicate with other or multiple remote customs offices and the trading community. These communication mediums are very expensive, and burdensome to operate and maintain. For example, when a customs office experiences problems with its system, onsite technical support is almost, always required. For larger countries and large user-communities (e.g., United States of America, Russia, etc.), such technical support is more expensive than the services.
Lastly, current customs information processing systems lack the necessary integration of those aspects of a customs-based enterprise to provide current and reliable customs information, when and as needed, to enable a customs official or office to control its overall operation.
These features are desirable and are not implemented or available in conventional customs information processing systems.
Therefore, notwithstanding the available customs information processing systems, there remains a need in the art for a customs inspection and data processing system for reliably processing customs information over the Internet from any remote location at any time.